Set: 2006 Topps
Baseball
Player name: Alex Gordon -
Card: #297Selling range: Back in 2006 these were selling for $1,000-$4,000.
We just saw one sell on ebay at the end of 2009 for $297.00 - kind of
strange since the card # is 297!

Alex Gordon

Alex Gordon is a prospect for the Kansas
City Royals. When the product was first released, set collectors noticed
that they were missing
#297.

Technically
the set collectors weren't missing the card because Topps wasn't supposed
to make it. In 2006 the sports card industry agreed to release only TRUE
rookie cards, meaning that the rookie had to play in at least
one MLB game in order to have his card released (which they didn’t require in the past). At the time that the
card was released, Gordon had not played in a single MLB game. After Topps
issued the set, they realized that they made a mistake and several of the
Alex Gordon “true rookie” cards were already being found by collectors!

For the rest of the Gordon cards that
had not been released, Topps cut out the picture of him leaving just
a white border with an empty space in the middle. You can get the Gordon
cut-out cards from $50-$100. Update...end of 2009 we saw one sell for $40
and one for $170 (big price range!)

One
collector who appreciates these Gordon cards is Keith Olbermann of ESPN.
Olbermann has reportedly has spent $7,500 for one of the cards. There's also a user
on ebay who has spent upwards of $42,000 on them - some people speculate
that it's Olbermann.

There are
some who believe that this was done intentionally by the card companies in
order to drive sales. Most (if not
all) of
these cards were found in specific packs from Wal-Mart and are called 2006 Topps series one Wal-Mart exclusives.